Last week, a terrorist attack took place in Montréal, Canada. In the attack, an individual targeted an adult entertainment/technology company (AYLO) and its employees. Two people were killed in the attack, as well as the attacker.
Prior to the attack, the perpetrator released a 104-page manifesto. This has been the subject of intense media scrutiny.
My Secure Line co-hosts and I decided to record an emergency podcast reflecting on the attack’s significance, but more importantly, how people understood the manifesto. We were all dismayed by how quickly the incel-misogynistic motivation was downplayed for other themes.
To be clear, any manifesto is usually a grab bag of grievances, ideas, and issues. These ideas might converge or diverge, but it’s all intended to shape narratives around an attack, and this case is no different.
I invite you to listen to the podcast in its entirety, because this is a critical issue for understanding terrorism today.
I want to be very clear here, however, about how I see this attack and the manifesto:
A common feature of terrorism and extremism today is mixed or unstable ideologies. We see this in manifestos like the Montréal shooter’s, where many different ideas and grievances converge. However, underlying his ideology (and many ideologies today) is a strong misogyny. This is the common feature tying many different types of terrorism together. This also leads to “picking and choosing” what themes are important by readers, particularly those who aren’t trained in reading extremist texts. In the case of the Montréal shooter, the main worldview tying his various ideas together is misogyny. Females, girls, and women are referenced hundreds of times (370+). Anti-capitalism appears frequently as well (about 100x). Other ideas and grievances, like anti-zionism, Marxism, and pornography, are mentioned dozens of times, illustrating that the shooter’s main focus (and driving force) was grievances against women, with other grievances and ideas scaffolded on top.
The courts, as well as our intelligence and security services (CSIS and the RCMP), have also been very clear that Incel-motivated violence meets the definition of terrorism. Refusing to acknowledge Incel ideology and misogynistic violence as terrorist in nature is, in and of itself, misogynistic.
Misogyny is a political system designed to repress and subordinate women. Denying Incel as terrorism is just one more legal exclusion of women.
I also want to add that it’s dismaying that no public official has come out and called this what it is: an act of terrorism. There will obviously be no terrorism charges laid in this case (the perpetrator is dead); however, it would be useful for political leaders to actually lead in this space and name this for what it is.1
Finally, I want to add that this is the first terrorist attack in Canada in over two years. The last one was in Edmonton in 2024.2 However, there have been a number of terrorism disruptions (arrests, peace bonds, etc). We had a very good run of preventing terrorism in this country — in fact, this two-year period was the longest we have gone without a terrorist attack in Canada since 2011. This is something our law enforcement and security services should be proud of, even as they review the Montréal shooting to identify areas where it might have been disrupted.
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I think it’s entirely possible (and probable) that in future reports, CSIS, ITAC, and the RCMP will list this attack in their terrorism statistics/analysis of terrorism in Canada. I’ll be keeping my eyes open for that.
This count excludes the Tumbler Ridge school shooting. There are compelling arguments for including it as a terrorist attack; for the time being, I’m excluding school shootings from my data as I’m not certain that school shootings would meet the legal criteria for being ideologically, politically, or religiously motivated in Canada, and that they are designed to create societal fear or change.